BUTTERFLIES OF HAZELEIGH. 299 



net, I made her a prisoner. Before I did this, I had carefully noticed 

 ■which twig she had been on, and, finding I could not reach it, or bend 

 it down with my net, I shouted to my groom outside the wood to 

 drive the dogcart in. Mounted on this I easily secured the coveted 

 twig, and, to make assurance doubly sure, I brought home with me 

 the whole of the branch of which this twig was but an insignificant 

 part. But, alas ! the most minute and painstaking investigation (with 

 a powerful lens) failed to reveal a single egg ! Ineffably chagrined I 

 went down to the wood and brought back from the same tree the two 

 tranches surrounding the original one, but with no better success. 

 The ? butterfly herself sleeved out on an oak in my garden, lived a 

 few days, but steadfastly refused to lay, as did several other 2 s I 

 treated in a similar manner. I am so used to searching for butterfly 

 eggs that I am practically certain I could not have missed seeing those 

 of B. qttercus had there been any on the twigs which I examined. I 

 feel altogether baffled and humiliated. But, to counterbalance this 

 disappointment, I made some deeply interesting discoveries about 

 another butterfly, Celastrina argiolus. The eastern side of my rectory 

 is covered with a very pretty ivy, having small variegated leaves, and 

 flowering towards the end of August, when I generally find larvse of 

 the second brood of C. argiolus fullfed. I searched this year on the 31st, 

 beginning at 2 p.m., and was greatly surprised to notice two small 

 black ants [Lasius niger) running backwards and forwards over a 

 fullgrown larva. This larva I left for further observation, and, on 

 revisiting it at 5.30 on the same afternoon, I found it attended by 

 four ants of the same species. I then "gathered" the larva, which 

 the ants left very unwillingly. There were no ants on nine other 

 larvae found the same day. Next day (September 1st) I found a larva 

 on the same part of the iyj, at 11 a.m., with two ants running over it, 

 stopping now and then to imbibe some sweet exudation. There were 

 many of these same ants On the ivy, especially at the tips of new 

 shoots, where they were milking black aphides. As these two days 

 formed part of the record heat wave we experienced just then, I am 

 tempted to think that the larvEe may, like human beings, have 

 perspired more freely than usual, and so have attracted the ants. 

 About a week previously to this I had (on August 23rd) observed a 

 very worn 5 C. argiolus ovipositing at 10.40 a.m., on the unopened 

 flower-buds of a very late-flowering ivy, which scrambled over part 

 of my western wall. I did not interfere with the eggs, but on October 

 5th I found a single fullfed larva, and on the 7th, two others, resulting 

 from these eggs. These three larv^ pupated almost immediatelj''. 

 Hence we may deduce that a ? argiolus lays her eggs on ivy buds that 

 will be just ready to burst into flower when the larvfe are fullfed ; for 

 in my experience the larva always eats buds, never flowers, of ivy. 

 Early in September I received a few pupse of this species from 

 Mucking, where my friend. Rev. C. E. N. Burrows, found the larvae 

 in his garden. He himself has recorded the emergence of a single 

 third-brood specimen from one of these larvae which he kept, and I 

 myself had three such emergences, viz., a ? on September 14th, 

 another 5 (but deformed) on September 20th, and a <3^ on September 

 22nd. It has been stated in print that the 5 born here on September 

 14th is of the spring form, and possibly I told Mr. Burrows so on a 

 Slurried post card, but, now that it is ofl' the boards and I come to 



